Doris M. Birch/Wheeler/Carter - Her Later Years

Doris was born on 24 Mar 1901 in Orland, Glenn Co., CA.  There she grew up and attended local schools.  Before she graduated from Orland High School, she fell in love with a young man from Corning, a few miles to the north.  This young man was Harry St. Clare WHEELER who was soon serving in the US Navy in France during WW I.  He would return in the Spring of 1919 and they married on 7 Aug 1920 at Orland.  With a brief sojourn in Ventura, CA, they would raise their family in Corning, where Doris would spend most of the rest of her life.  She had 4 living children with St. Clare before he died in 1939.  She spent many years as a widow raising her children.  On 30 Nov 1958 Doris married John William CARTER at Corning and they enjoyed 18 years of marriage before John died in 1976.  Doris returned to the familiar state of widowhood for the rest of her life.  She had to leave Corning in 1998 as her health continued to fail.  She spent her last years being well cared for in a skilled nursing facility in Williams, CA, where she died peacefully on 20 Nov 2002; her age at death was 101 years, 7 months and 27 days.  On 24 Nov. her funeral service was held at the Hall Brothers Chapel, Corning, with retired Rev. Ellis Martin officiating.  On a clear windy Valley day she was laid to rest in the Wheeler plot in the far west edge of Sunset Hill Cemetery east of Corning.  (For more about Doris & her family click here - for the poem read at her funeral, click here - for her obituary in the local paper, click here.)